Anna Karenina eBook

Chapter 10

“Kitty writes to me that there’s nothing
she longs for so much as quiet and solitude,”
Dolly said after the silence that had followed.

“And how is she—­better?” Levin
asked in agitation.

“Thank God, she’s quite well again.
I never believed her lungs were affected.”

“Oh, I’m very glad!” said Levin,
and Dolly fancied she saw something touching, helpless,
in his face as he said this and looked silently into
her face.

“Let me ask you, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,”
said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling her kindly and rather
mocking smile, “why is it you are angry with
Kitty?”

“I? I’m not angry with her,”
said Levin.

“Yes, you are angry. Why was it you did
not come to see us nor them when you were in Moscow?”

“Darya Alexandrovna,” he said, blushing
up to the roots of his hair, “I wonder really
that with your kind heart you don’t feel this.
How it is you feel no pity for me, if nothing else,
when you know...”

“What do I know?”

“You know I made an offer and that I was refused,”
said Levin, and all the tenderness he had been feeling
for Kitty a minute before was replaced by a feeling
of anger for the slight he had suffered.

“What makes you suppose I know?”

“Because everybody knows it...”

“That’s just where you are mistaken; I
did not know it, though I had guessed it was so.”

“Well, now you know it.”

“All I knew was that something had happened
that made her dreadfully miserable, and that she begged
me never to speak of it. And if she would not
tell me, she would certainly not speak of it to anyone
else. But what did pass between you? Tell
me.”

“I have told you.”

“When was it?”

“When I was at their house the last time.”

“Do you know that,” said Darya Alexandrovna,
“I am awfully, awfully sorry for her.
You suffer only from pride....”

“Perhaps so,” said Levin, “but...”

She interrupted him.

“But she, poor girl...I am awfully, awfully
sorry for her. Now I see it all.”

“No, wait a minute,” she said, clutching
him by the sleeve. “Wait a minute, sit
down.”

“Please, please, don’t let us talk of
this,” he said, sitting down, and at the same
time feeling rise up and stir within his heart a hope
he had believed to be buried.

“If I did not like you,” she said, and
tears came into her eyes; “if I did not know
you, as I do know you . . .”

The feeling that had seemed dead revived more and
more, rose up and took possession of Levin’s
heart.

“Yes, I understand it all now,” said Darya
Alexandrovna. “You can’t understand
it; for you men, who are free and make your own choice,
it’s always clear whom you love. But a
girl’s in a position of suspense, with all a
woman’s or maiden’s modesty, a girl who
sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust,—­
a girl may have, and often has, such a feeling that
she cannot tell what to say.”